Let’s begin with a positive story.
Salon, Rae Hodge, 11 Aug 2024: A daring escape from cynicism: Scientist explains why “hopeful skeptics” are outsmarting doomers, subtitled “A new book from a Stanford neuroscientist aims to prove that cynicism blinds us as badly as rose-colored glasses”
This is an interview with the author of a new book, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, to be published in September, that counters the common presumption that humans are basically evil (and therefore need religion to cure them). In fact, as anthropologists and sociologists have identified, and writers like Pinker and Bregman have written about, humans are more often cooperative than competitive, at least within local groups.
The writer got an advance copy of the book.
But one Sunday morning at a coffee shop, I set my grudge aside, and plopped down with the 260-page paperback for a skim. When I looked up, the staff were closing up and I’d devoured every page. Start to finish, I was in the grip of what one might describe as a secular “come to Jesus moment” — a “come to data moment” for my inner cynical scientist.
Zaki’s book, I later told him in an interview, is critical reading in a world where cynicism seems like the only justifiable psychological protection one has against climate despair and chaos. Zaki’s discovery here about how human hope and skeptical curiosity can change our daily and collective outcomes in the world isn’t some over-burdened academic reach about miracle drugs or trendy new life-coach talking points.
Rather, its premises and praxis are rooted in an adept, interdisciplinary command of so many others’ work. Woven in Zaki’s affable and deeply considered writing, latter day research into how optimism and hopeful skepticism build out creative problem-solving and intelligence seems to come to life for the first time. Hopefulness, it seems, can indeed be a choice leading to measurably improved outcomes — and here we are offered a clear continuum of logical, clinically studied and peer-reviewed proof.
So I’m familiar with the idea. Will I read the book? Um, maybe.
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In political news, first of all, there was some truth to Trump’s story a couple days ago about that helicopter incident.
NY Times, 10 Aug 2024: Yes, Trump Was in a Scary Helicopter Ride. But Not With That Politician., subtitled “There was a helicopter. It did make an emergency landing. But a former California lawmaker says Donald Trump has mixed up one Black lawmaker for another.”
The gist: he confused Willie Brown, a short black man from San Francisco, with Nate Holden, a tall black man from Los Angeles. Presumably to him all those black men look like.
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Projection.
Salon, Kelly McClure, 11 Aug 2024: Trump accuses Harris of using AI to create fake crowds at campaign events, subtitled “‘Everything about Kamala is fake!’ Trump writes in a series of rants to Truth Social”
Everything the Republicans accuse the Democrats of doing are things that, evidence has shown, Republicans have actually done.
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Well, OK, I’ll grant this…
Robert Reich, 9 Aug 2024: Bonus Debunking Myth: “Trump supporters are ignorant.” Bunk!
… because we know some of them are cynical opportunists: wealthy people who know Republicans will cut their taxes; businessmen for whom any government regulation (which Republicans will also cut) is tantamount to socialism, or worse.
But Reich has another take. The subtitle to the link is “Many of them are responding angrily to a rigged system. It’s not enough that we beat Trump on Election Day. To beat Trumpism, we must also unrig the system.”
Friends,
It’s too easy to conclude that Trump supporters are ignorant.
Addressing the root causes of their support for Trump doesn’t justify their support of him. But if we want to reduce the lure of Trumpism — of authoritarianism and neofascism — we need to address its root causes.
And ironically, the system they think is rigged has become that way because…
Over the last 40 years, the “free market” has been rigged and power has shifted upward to corporate executives and investors who engage in organized bribery — bankrolling lawmakers who change laws and regulations to their benefit.
This has allowed the powerful to monopolize industries, bash unions, pay lower taxes, make big financial bets on Wall Street and get bailed out when the bets go sour, outsource jobs abroad, and pretend they’re job creators who deserve all this power.
At the bottom of the post are links to the ten economic ‘myths’ he’s been writing about in recent weeks. I think I mentioned the one about economic growth.
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As of two days ago.
Washington Post, Dana Milbank, 9 Aug 2024: Opinion | ‘Weird’ doesn’t begin to capture the Trump-Vance campaign, subtitled “As Democrats play to massive, raucous crowds, the Republican ticket is busy courting angry young men.”
One is running a high-decibel campaign. The other is waging a high-incel campaign.
